Stretch database to Azure

With stretch Database to Azure you will be able to store or archives your historical data transparently and securely.

This feature is available in SQL Server 2016 Community Technology Preview 2 (CTP2). Stretch Database stores your historical data in the Microsoft Azure cloud. SQL Database service in Microsoft Azure Cloud is provided as a Platform as a Service [PaaS]) with remote query processing capability. Once you enable this feature for a table, SQL Server silently and transparently moves/migrates data to Azure SQL Database.

The following benefits you will get by stretching database to Azure.

• Reduced cost and complexity.

• Faster query execution for current data set.

• You continue to have seamless access to both local and remote data.

• Archived data remains online and they are query-able like any other table in local SQL Server database

• No application change is required to access these archived tables or data;

• Maintenance time is reduced as it will peeform on local data (re-index, performance tuning, backup/restore)

Before you configure a database for Stretch, run the Stretch Database Advisor to identify databases and tables that are eligible for Stretch. The Stretch Database Advisor also identifies blocking issues. For more info, see Identify databases and tables for Stretch Database by running Stretch Database Advisor.

Enabling Stretch Database on a database or a table db_owner permissions. Enabling Stretch Database on a database also requires CONTROL DATABASE permissions.

Arshad has nicely explained in his blog on databasejournal